What are Primary Sources?

Primary sources provide first-hand testimony or direct evidence about a topic. They are created by witnesses or
recorders who experienced the events or conditions being studied.

Primary sources were either created during the time period being
studied or were created at a later date by a participant in the events
being studied as in the case of
autobiographies, memoirs, and oral histories recorded later.

Specific examples of primary sources are the Autobiography of Anne Frank, the Declaration of Independence, and film footage of the Kennedy Assassination.

Free Online Primary Sources on the Web

The Victorian Women Writers Project (VWWP) began in 1995 at Indiana University and is primarily concerned with the exposure of lesser-known British women writers of the 19th century. The collection represents an array of genres - poetry, novels, children's books, political pamphlets, religious tracts, histories, and more. VWWP contains scores of authors, both prolific and rare.